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Anyway, the chefs geek out again as they realize they were seated amongst dessert icons. Baby Hands thinks it was crazy that Charlie was seated near him, and Orlando realizes the lady next to him watching him recite dialogue was the real Veruca Salt. Charlie and Veruca get all the attention in the episode – Violet and Mike barely speak. Mike seems to have been through the taffy room a few too many times over the year, and Violet looks as if she aged 200 years over time. The juicing room must be serious hell.

Now, the actual Elimination Challenge put all 11 chefs on the same team. Recreate the world of Pure Imagination. There is no life I know to compare with pure imagination. Living there, you’ll be free if you truly wish to be. Sorry, didn’t I say that I love that song! The Slughorn Twist (the “bad guy” in the film, newbies) is that two chefs will be eliminated this week. They all have to make“little surprises around every corner, but nothing dangerous.” An awesome cruel twist – the coolest challenge they ever did, coupled with a double knifing. The chefs dove head first into the challenge and for the most part did an unbelievable job. The obvious chefs who should have gone home went home, and there were several who realistically could have won this thing. The suspense is terrible… I hope it’ll last.

The drama came from a new dynamic forming – Hammer as a villain. Clearly, I think Orlando is the main villain – he is relishing the role. But this week, Hammer’s attempt at the chocolate waterfall ate up so much time and effort and almost got Cute Megan eliminated. As Rebecca said, it took three of them to make the darn thing and it prevented Megan from paying attention to her own dessert. Hammer even seemed incredulous that he was not in the top three afterwards. It came across as extremely egotistical, even if in reality it could have been an innocent reaction.

Regarding Megan’s dessert, she made something containing bourbon. Why? How did she not think children would be involved in a Willy Wonka challenge? Even if they weren’t, it’s a kids movie, don’t you think kid-friendly is somewhat implied in the challenge? She’s lucky there were two chefs who were either abysmal or who made the singularly worst dish, by far, in the challenge. She lives to fight another day.

Katzie and Carlos were the stars. In any normal week, Carlos’ dishes would have been clear winners. He took a Morgan-style macaroon, as Elvis said, a very French dish, and put an American spin on it with peanut butter and jelly. I will tell you right here and now, that part of my lifelong quest from this point on will be to have one of these. Carlos, I ask that you send me one. I will provide the proper address to send them when the time is right.

He also made edible wallpaper, just like in the movie. As Charlie admitted, the prop didn’t really have bananas that taste like bananas, strawberries that taste like strawberries, or snozberries that taste like snozberries. You hear that guest judge Ben-Israel? Snoz, not schnoz. I don’t want some nose-tasting berry on my wallpaper. After all, “we are the music makers… and we are the dreamers of dreams.”

But it was Katzie who stole the show – thank goodness she stood her ground with Hammer and decided to make…er…ground. Her carrot garden patch was inspired. She buried the chocolate covered carrot cakes in the ground (presumably with some sort of crumbled chocolate as dirt), which you yank out of the ground by the stem. Brilliant. And she also made an edible beehive where you could squeeze honey – in a manner resembling milking a cow – onto a piece of cake. Also brilliant, and a well-deserved win.

Baby Hands latched onto the scene in the film where Violet chomps on a giant gummy bear’s ear. We learn that the ear was the only edible part of that bear, so Baby Hands chooses to make a real giant gummy bear. Except he doesn’t possess the skills to do it. His first attempt comes out of the mold as some giant glob of gelatin. Macho 1 has to come in and save her old student by showing him how to make the mold a bit more successfully. It seems he only managed to make one in one piece. Elvis find a headless one during tasting, and needless to say, the darn thing is a total disaster.

Macho 2 made two things, one good and one really, really bad. She made really nice flowers made of whoopee pies and chocolate. However, she also had these donut flowers. As she tends to do, Macho 2 blames the set-up creative team for not constructing the plants better- essentially it was a pole which she slid the donuts over. Elvis pointed out that there needed to be something edible about the stem, or else it’ll look like hardware. Of course, the biggest problem for her was the donut. Veruca wanted to spit it out. That’s how bad they were. She didn’t want it.

Macho 1 and Megan also hit the bottom – but it was clear that the terrible donuts and the headless gummy bears were the worst things served. Macho 1 just made a dish which was very messy, and Megan skimped on her own dish because she helped others. It was very nice for Carlos and Katzie to stand up for her at Judges Table, stating clearly that her help put them on the top.